Scott Baradell edits and contributes to Black Star Rising. A former newspaper journalist and executive for Belo Corp., Scott is an accomplished brand strategist who leads the Dallas-based Idea Grove agency. He has nearly two decades of experience working closely with professional photographers, both as a journalist and as a corporate photography buyer. He has consulted for Black Star since 2006.

After a 12-month beta period that tapped the brains of 500,000 photographers, Adobe Systems this week released Photoshop Lightroom 1.0.

Designed primarily for pros, the tool allows users to import, manage and present large volumes of digital images. The software has added new functions since beta began; Lightroom’s Library function, for example, now lets users employ keywords to help sort through large image collections, as well as better organize photographs.

It’s an unlikely scenario that professional photographers would moonlight as software developers … Fortunately for us, they were willing to give it a shot. Everything, from image viewing and evaluation tools to time-saving editing features, was developed with the help of photographers…